This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

391 soldiers have died on Nov. 11. Here’s how one school remembers them

Standing in line with her classmates, Sophie Reddy bounces on the heels of her white Velcro sneakers, reciting a list of names under her breath. Her turn is next.

“Private Clarence Melvin Sholds,” the 10-year-old whispers. Eyes fixed on the floor, she is concentrating.

“Corporal Cyril Slade.”

A pause, then: “Private Adam Smart.”

“Private Obadiah Snowdon.”

Article Continued Below

Sophie smiles. Her weekend practice has paid off. She remembers.

It’s just after 9 on a Monday morning at Thorndale Public School in Brampton. The bell has rung, the day has begun and the students — Grade 1 to 5 — are making their way to the gym, one class at a time, where a canvas about as long as a school bus has been taped to a wall under a basketball net.

The Thorndale students are making a mural to honour Canadian soldiers who died in service on Nov. 11 throughout history, from Lt. Charles Carroll Wood, killed in South Africa during the second Boer War in 1899, to a long list of First and Second World War veterans, and more. There are 391 names, and by day’s end, the children will have penned them all on the canvas.

As each generation grows increasingly disconnected from the wars that shaped their country and the people who fought them, the project is an attempt to connect in a new way. For many students, Nov. 11 is simply the day they wear a poppy or stand for a minute of silence. Tradition, without understanding, can lack meaning. Will a name make a difference?

Most students have been assigned one or two soldiers. Sophie has taken on four. Over the weekend, she wrote them over and over on scrap paper. She gave the notes to her dad, who checked for errors. Her mom listened as Sophie practised reciting names from memory.

Now, gazing at the canvas, Sophie is nervous. She says it would be shameful to forget — or worse, to misspell. “ ’Cause you don’t really wanna dishonour those who fought for you,” she says. “And you would make a fool out of yourself.”

When it’s her turn, she picks up a black marker, chooses a spot in the centre and begins to write, carefully. She is one of the few who go to the wall without a list to prompt her. Sophie wanted to learn the names by heart. After all, isn’t that the point of Remembrance Day — to remember?

“It’s important for us to know about our past.”

In 90 seconds, the job is done; four names, no errors.

Sophie is a polite girl; earnest, observant, determined to do things right. Her dark, shoulder-length hair is parted neatly in the middle. When she’s not practising piano or ballet, she reads the newspaper and studies Greek mythology.

Like many students at Thorndale — where the population is about 90 per cent East Indian, the rest a mix of Caribbean and Caucasian — Sophie is a first-generation Canadian. Her parents emigrated from Guyana; Sophie and her brother, Joshua, were born in Brampton. The children don’t have a direct connection to the wars their country fought, or any wars for that matter, but they each have developed a connection to the past. Joshua, 16, an army cadet, sells poppies. Sophie, a keener, takes it upon herself to learn more than she is required to.

The students, at first, take a cautious approach to the canvas, writing with trepidation, turning to look at how the boy or girl next to them is doing. When one child breaks from crowd tradition and draws a poppy, the mural begins to morph, and soon a field of red flowers and other tributes decorates the space between names.

One student draws a Canadian flag with a heart for a maple leaf.

Nearby, a stick figure in a turban has a word bubble coming from its mouth: “I am on gard.”

This is the work of the younger students, enthusiastic about the project, even if unclear on its purpose. Ask a bunch of wide-eyed 5-year-olds why they’re writing the names of soldiers on a wall, and they are bound to take you very literally.

“Because they died,” says Harleen Kaur, a soft-spoken Grade 1 student. Her classmates, kneeling in a neat row on the gym floor, nod solemnly in agreement. Yup, they died.

“It’s too abstract for this age level,” says their teacher, Fran Hackett. “Death is not something a lot of them at this age have probably had any exposure to.”

Many children are surprised to learn how young the soldiers were; at an age when they should have been going to college, they went off to war.

“Cool,” one boy declares.

“It’s not cool,” says Whahid Sultani, a Grade 4 student. “Because they might lose their lives in the war. And many families lose their family members.”

Whahid is 9. Long before he was born, his mother’s brother was killed fighting for the Afghan army during a civil war. “His leg got shot off,” Whahid explains. “Then he died from losing blood.” His family’s loss is on his mind as he adds his soldier’s name to the mural. Pte. Charles George McInerney was 20 when he died in Belgium in 1917, two years younger than Whahid’s uncle.

Near the end of the day, Sophie learns a little more about her soldiers from veteran records. All four died Nov. 11, 1918, the day the First World War ended. Sholds was a sailor by trade. Slade was a chair maker. All were in their 20s.

Sophie is quiet for a moment as the gym empties and she takes these details in.

“They were regular once, too, as we are,” she says. “They weren’t born to be soldiers . . . . They didn’t have much of a say. They just had to, and they did.”

The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com